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Inverness-shire (Scottish Gaelic: Siorrachd Inbhir Nis) is a historic county of Scotland and a present-day lieutenancy area with slightly different boundaries to the old county. As of 2001, it has a population of 67,733 which is 1.34% of the total population of Scotland.[1]

Azure, in dexter chief a stag's head and in sinister chief a bull's head both erased, and in base a galley, sails furled, oars in action and flagged, all Or. Beneath the shield an escrol bearing this motto: Air son Math na Siorrachd.

The galley represents Clan Chattan, who aligned themselves under the banner of Somerled, Lord of the Isles. The stag's head comes from the crest of the Frasers of Lovat, while the bull's head comes from the crest of the MacLeods of that Ilk. The motto is in Gaelic and means "For the Good of the County".

Inverness-shire acquired a county council in 1890, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, and, under the same legislation, boundaries were altered to make the county a single contiguous area, transferring several exclaves of other counties to Inverness-shire.

Although the new boundaries were supposed to be valid for all purposes (unlike earlier boundaries, which were really default boundaries and not necessarily those used for any particular purpose), the burghs of Inverness, Fort William, Kingussie, which had their own town councils, retained autonomous status and were for some purposes beyond the writ of the new county council. The town of Inverness had been established as a royal burgh since the mid 12th century, Fort William, originally a Fort of that name built by the Government to keep the Highlanders in their place, around which grew up a village which became in turn Gordonsburgh, Maryburgh, Duncansburgh and laterly the town/burgh of Fort William which had been established as a burgh of barony since 1618 and Kingussie had been established as a burgh of barony since 1464. Also, use of the new boundaries for parliamentary elections was specifically excluded.

The old county councils were abolished by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and Scotland was instead governed by a two-tier system of regions and districts. Mainland Inverness-shire was split amongst four districts of the Highland region, whilst the county's territory in the Outer Hebrides was transferred to the Western Isles council area.

1. The burgh of Inverness and the Aird and Inverness districts were merged to form the Inverness Local Government district of the Highland region.

2. The burgh of Fort William and the Lochaber district were merged with areas from the county of Argyll (the Ardnamurchan district and the electoral divisions of Ballachulish and Kinlochleven) to form the Lochaber district of the Highland region.

The Barra, Harris, North Uist, and South Uist districts were merged with areas from the county of Ross and Cromarty (the burgh of Stornoway and Lewis district) to form the Western Isles council area.

Within the Highland region, local government functions were divided between the regional council and the district councils. For example, education was a regional responsibility, and housing was a district responsibility.

The new unitary Highland Council adopted the areas of the former districts as management areas. Each management area was represented, initially, by area committees consisting of councillors elected from areas (groups of local government wards) corresponding to the management areas, but changes to ward boundaries in 1999 created a mismatch between committee areas and management areas.

In 2007, at the time of further changes to ward boundaries, which created 22 multi-member wards instead of 80 single-member wards, the council created a new management structure, with three new corporate management areas and 16 new ward-level management areas. Also, four of the ward-level management areas, covering the seven wards, were grouped to form an Inverness city (or Inverness and Area) management area.

Divided between city area 1, covering the Aird and Loch Ness ward and a southern portion of the Inverness South ward, and city area 4, covering the Culloden and Ardersier ward and a northern portion of the Inverness South ward

Civil parishes are still used for some statistical purposes, and separate census figures are published for them. As their areas have been largely unchanged since the 19th century this allows for comparison of population figures over an extended period of time.

In 1854 in Inverness-shire there were 29 civil parishes; 7 part civil parishes; and 5 parliamentary parishes.[3]

In 1983, eight years after the local government county of Inverness had been divided between the Highland region and the Western Isles council area, three new constituencies were created to cover the Highland region. The region, until 1996, and the unitary Highland council area, 1996 to present, have been covered by three constituencies since then but there were changes to boundaries and names in 1997 and 2005.